Take that! This show should have a sequel called Black Belt In Ballet. [Warming Glow]

• Madeleine Pickens, wife of T. Boone, has announced she'll create a 1 million acre refuge for wild horses after the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said it will euthanize some of the animals in order to control the herds that roam over 10 Western states. • A retired librarian who died two years ago left more than $2 million to be split between the universities she attended: School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia .• Three wrestlers claim that they were infected with herpes simplex 1 because York College coaches let team members wrestle with active lesions. • A recent survey in England found that 14 million people admit to reading on the toilet and up to 8 million say they like to talk on the phone or in person while on the loo. • The Australian Council of Trade Unions has warned Australia's Federal Government that paid maternity leave is "not negotiable" and should be delivered in next year's budget, leaving the US as the only developed country without a universal paid parental leave scheme. • A letter from Lewis Carrol to his child muse, Alice Liddell, is expected to fetch between £4,000 to £6,000 pounds at auction next week in England. • Ever wonder what happened to "the Bee Girl" in Blind Melon's classic "No Rain" music video? She is 25 and an aspiring actress. • Tennessee State University has blocked students' access to the anonymous and troll-y message board, Juicy Campus. • Japanese graphic designer Sachie Tani will appear in an upcoming episode of Animal Planet's Cat 101 with her cat Goma, a bona-fide internet celebrity. • A new study claims that obese women who get pregnant after bariatric surgery tend to be healthier and less likely to deliver a baby born with complications. • An AP photographer successfully reunited two girls with the family they were separated from during the war in Congo. • Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield—the inspiration for Eri Yoshida, a 16-year-old Japanese girl who was drafted into a pro Japanese baseball team— says he hopes to see Yoshida pitch one day. • A new study reveals that the part of the brain that copes with stress flips to the opposite side of a woman's brain when she gets her period. • An Indiana Court of Appeals ruled this week that the state's policy of not charging motorists for special "In God We Trust" license plates was constitutional. • More than 80,000 people have signed an internet petition to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, urging him to release a pregnant lawyer from a prison camp in Mordovia in a case against a former oil magnate. • The managers of Pascha, a brothel in Germany, say they would eliminate their $6 entry fee in exchange for customers getting the brothel's logo tattooed on their arm. • Ethel, a 4-year-old rabbit in England whose back legs became paralyzed last year, got a custom-made wheelchair to help her move around. • A study claims that Millennials are much more confident than previous generations of kids and many think they will be "very good" employees, mates and parents. • A 74-year-old grandmother in England has been banned from driving for 18 months after she drank and drove after an aerobics class earlier this month and attempted to drive up some stairs. • A flamingo that flew out of a zoo in Des Moines, Iowa on Tuesday has been recaptured and returned to zoo officials. • Suspected wife-murderer Drew Peterson met with divorce lawyers to discuss divorcing his wife Stacy who has been missing for over a year. •

Several Chinese news articles dated before the Olympics list birthdates for He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin that would make them younger than the team now says they are — younger than the official Olympic age limit of 16. But a lot of the public reaction to these girls has been based on how they look. A commenter on the US News & World Report website, for instance, writes, "Some looked like they hadn't grown in all of their permanent teeth."

As someone who looked 14 until she was 20, I'll be the first to tell you that you can't tell how old someone is by looking. And there's something especially creepy about Americans infantilizing Asian girls. It's almost as though their very underage-ness is exciting.

Except to their competitors. "On average 30 pounds heavier and 3.5 inches taller than the doll-sized Chinese gymnasts," O'Rourke writes, "they had the sheen of aging starlets, imbuing the scene with a peculiar Sunset Boulevard feel." She continues with this disturbing analysis:

It was as if, worried that the Chinese might have an unfair advantage, the Americans suddenly became aware of their growing bodies, of the potential for harm, of how easy it is to make a mistake, of how fast time flies and the body stiffens, even for those who can flip through the air and perform ever more complicated release skills on the uneven bars.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether Alicia Sacramone really felt like Norma Desmond on the balance beam, the fact remains that younger gymnasts do have an advantage. The sport "rewards lightness and a low center of gravity," writes O'Rourke, "and the prepubescent tend, quite simply, to be more fearless." Some, including American coach and model of tact and restraint Bela Karolyi, think this means the Olympic Committee should simply remove the age limit. If a 14-year-old gymnast is as good as or better than a 21-year-old, he argues, why shouldn't she get to compete?

His argument has a certain logic — if you're 15 in 2008, for instance, you'll have to wait until 2012 to compete. That would make you 19 and, according to O'Rourke's reasoning, SOL for the gold. And if the Olympics this post to showcase the best athletes, should it really matter if the best athletes in a certain sport happen to be 14?

I posed this question to my dad recently, and despite his lack of specialized gymnastics knowledge or Olympic affiliation, he said something worth repeating: "I just don't want to watch children compete." To him it seems a little like child labor for a young girl to represent her country in grueling, internationally televised events. I tend to agree, especially since putting 14-year-olds on the world stage invariably results in half-disgusted, half-titillated cooing — "ooh, look how young she looks" — rather than a focus on their athletic prowess.

Then again, with the exception of Dara Torres, Oksana Chusovitina, and a few equestrians, most Olympic sports are the province of the very young. Is it naïve to expect gymnastics to be any different? Would you rather see only girls with their drivers' licenses navigate the balance beam, or the best of the best, regardless of age?

The Silver Lining [Slate]
The Chinese Gymnasts: Age Questions Remain [Time]
Public Opinion: Does The Chinese Women's Gymnastics Team Have Underage Members? [U.S. News & World Report]
Bela Karolyi Incensed About Underage Rules [NBC]